One lesson from the 1979 Iranian revolution and the 2011 Arab revolutions is that activists seeking to promote women’s rights, human rights and the transition to democracy must challenge patriarchy from within the Muslim legal tradition. 

The failure to translate the momentum of the heady days of the January 2011 protests in Egypt into an effective revolutionary force is closely related to the organisational forms adopted by oppositional movements. This poses broader questions for social movements worldwide, argues Maha Abdelrahman

The statement issued by the Muslim Brotherhood in response to the UN Commission on the Status of Women draft Agreed Conclusions on violence against women, is nothing short of an assault on their most basic rights as citizens and human beings, says Hoda Elsadda ,

The recent cultural wars between the Orthodox Jewish Hasidim in Brooklyn, New York and their neighbours are really about women’s appropriate role in their families and communities, as well as youthful rebellion among the Hasidim,says Ruth Rosen

“Violence against women and girls is not in anyone's culture, tradition or religion. This is about power, inequality, a lack of political will and courage to work towards a better world," says Shareen Gokal. Will those with the political will to end violence against women and girls prevail in the final hours of the CSW? 

On February 12, 2013, women of the Middle East, in the region and in the Diaspora, officially and publicly re-appropriated shame and honour. Suddenly, they are wearing the experience of surviving sexual terrorism and violence as a badge of honour, using their tragedy to fight for an end to violence against women.

The engagement of women as suicide bombers in the Taliban insurgency manifests fresh directions in the approaches and ideologies of those who are behind it. Counterinsurgency measures need to pay attention to the factors that drive women and girls to join the Taliban as suicide bombers, says Massouda Jalal